Cio Leader Lays Anti-semitic Remark to Willkie Supporter

October 29, 1940

NEW YORK (Oct. 28)

R.J. Thomas, president of the United Automobile Workers (CIO), today quoted a Wall Street supporter of Wendell L. Willkie as saying that “Willkie doesn’t want the Jewish vote,” according to a story in the New York Post.

Describing the man as “a Wall Street broker prominent in the financial end of the automobile industry and who claimed to be a schoolmate of Willkie and to have originated the movement which made Willkie the GOP nominee,” Thomas said the man held a conference with him in Detroit in which he sought labor support for Willkie.

Thomas reported that during the conversation the broker “said he would admit that Willkie would lose the Jewish vote, but added: ‘Willkie doesn’t want the Jewish vote. The Jews are surrounding Roosevelt and running the country. If you’d tell the truth, you’d say you don’t want the Jews either.'”